Passing the Torch… Who’s Going to Run With It?
By MARLO THOMAS
It’s hard to believe now, but it wasn’t that long ago in this country when, if you stood in a hospital hallway and looked through the glass window of the nursery, you could point to all the babies wrapped in pink and know exactly what they’d be doing in 20 years.
The babies swaddled in blue? Who knew? They had so many choices and adventures in front of them. Scientist? Salesman? Soldier? But for the girl babies, the choices were prescribed: wife, mother, maybe a teacher. And the expectations for girls were low. I still remember struggling with math when I was in grade school and being told by a nun, “Don’t worry, you won’t need it.”
You’re reading this on the new Women’s Page official launch day on Huffington Post, so it seems like a good time to take stock of how far women have come in this world. From my vantage point, I can’t think of a more exciting time to be a woman: We’ve finally reached our era of great expectations.